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Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding

The team of the NWO Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University (Rotterdam), is organising the conference ‘Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding’ on 19 and 20 October 2023 at the Erasmus Paviljoen at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Access to civil justice is of paramount importance for enforcing citizens’ rights. At the heart of access to civil justice lies litigation funding and cost management. Yet, over the past decades, access to justice has been increasingly put under pressure due to retrenching governments, high costs of procedure, and the inefficiency of courts and justice systems. Within this context, the funding of litigation in Europe seems to be shifting from public to private sources. Private actors and innovative business models emerged to provide new solutions to the old problem of financial barriers of access to justice.

With the participation of policymakers, practitioners, academics, and civil society representatives from all over Europe and beyond, the conference seeks to delve deeper into the financial implications of access to justice and the different ways to achieve sustainable civil justice systems in Europe.

The topics addressed in this international academic conference will include the different methods of financing dispute resolution, particularly in the context of group litigation (third-party funding, crowdfunding, blockchain technologies), public interest litigation, developments in ADR/ODR, the new business models of legal professionals as well as law and economics aspects on litigation funding. The conference is supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Find the link to registration here.

Please find the preliminary conference programme below.

Call for papers Vici Conference Sustainable justice 2023.pdf

Conference_Programme_2023_(1).pdf (euciviljustice.eu)

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Published: May 12, 2022

From December 2021 to June 2022, the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law is organising an online seminar series dedicated to the Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice.

The series “Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice” kicked off in December 2021 with a general session that addressed several topics of access to justice and costs and funding, including collective redress and costs reforms, and a Law & Economics perspective. The second seminar in January 2022 was dedicated to legal mobilisation in the EU. The third one in February addressed the impact of Public Interest Litigation on access to justice, and the fourth one in March litigation funding in Europe from a market perspective. The remaining seminars will zoom in on austerity policies and litigation costs reforms, funding and costs of ADR in civil justice, and EU regulation of Third Party Funding.

You can register for (one or more of) the seminars here.

UPCOMING EVENT:

Wednesday, 25 May 2022 (15-17 CEST)

Funding and Costs of ADR in the Civil Justice System

To attend the online event, please register here.

Program:

15.45 - 15.00: Registration / Zoom Connection

15.00 - 15.15: Masood Ahmed (Leicester Law School)

Welcome Address and Introduction

15.15 – 15.35: Sue Prince (University of Exeter)

Building bridges and fences: Mapping routes to resolving disputes using technology

15.35 - 15.55: Nicolas Kyriakides (University of Nicosia)

Affordability of ADR in Cyprus in light of new Civil Procedure Rules

15.55 – 16.10: Break

16.10 - 16.30: Dorcas Quek Anderson (Singapore Management University)

Counting the Cost of Enlarging the Role of ADR in Funding Civil Justice

16.30 - 17.00: Discussion & Conclusion of the Seminar

More information and registration here.

The Speakers:

Sue Prince is the Head of the Law School at the University of Exeter. Her research interests focus on access to justice in the civil courts looking particularly at the role of court-based mediation. She has conducted a number of empirical studies of the impact of mediation in the courts for bodies such as the Civil Justice Council and the Ministry of Justice.

Nicolas Kyriakides is a lawyer, academic and lobbyist. He is a graduate of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, he holds postgraduate degrees from UCL and NYU and a PhD (DPhil) from the University of Oxford. He has also been a visiting researcher at Harvard University.

Dorcas Quek Anderson is Associate Dean (Student, Staff & Alumni Affairs) and an Assistant Professor of Law in the Singapore Management University’s Yong Pung How School of Law. As a practising mediator and a former District Judge in the State Courts, Dorcas’ research is drawn from her experience and explores the interaction between dispute resolution developments and access to justice. Her research has been published in leading international journals including the Civil Justice Quarterly and the Harvard Negotiation Law Review.